Route 133 heads south west as it comfortably winds over McClure Pass (8,755 ft.).  As I descended from the pass I stopped to assist a motorcyclist who was broken down on the side of the road.  Bill and Tim were riding a GL1200 and a BMW towards Aspen when the BMW died. As proof that it is a  small world even in the most desolate places, Bill and Tim turn out to be from Chicago.  Unfortunately, my cellular phone could not penetrate the mountains surrounding us so I agreed to make a call in the next town to let their friends know where they were.  But it was not Tim's lucky day, since when I placed the call I found out that Tim had given me a wrong number.  Knowing that if worst came to worst Bill could give Tim a ride out, I kept going in order to take advantage of what little sunlight was left.  And I truly needed all of what little light was left.  Much to my chagrin I found myself slipping and sliding through a moderate left hand turn thanks to a puddle of diesel fuel. Recovering more from luck than skill, I was irritated to find that all subsequent left hand turns on route 133 also had diesel fuel on them.  Apparently a truck or motor home had run the route ahead of me with its gas tank cap open, spilling diesel fuel on every left hand turn with uncanny precision.  Fortunately there was no other traffic and I was able to use the oncoming lanes to avoid the hazard, but I stopped at the next campground to finish the route in full daylight.  A brief but heavy thunderstorm lit up the mountain peaks that night and washed the oil from the road making the remainder of route 133 more enjoyable.

At the end of route 133 highway 92  heads southeast around the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument.  There is a road that goes to the north rim of the Black Canyon that turns to gravel a few miles from the rim, and the last mile is severely rutted.  While the view is spectacular, it is better to invest your time in taking the paved road along the south rim.  The ride around to the south side of the Gunnison National Monument is filled with twisties as it travels along a ridge that offers wondrous scenery, but buy gas in Crawford or Maher since fuel is scarce before the next town. On the south side of The Gunnison National Monument route 50 takes you to Montrose and "The Million Dollar Highway."

Route 550 is aptly named the Million Dollar Highway.  Some say it got its name from the amount of gold suspected to be in the earth used to construct it.  Others say its name derives from the money local politicians lined their pockets with as they doled out lucrative contracts.  But most agree that its name best describes the gorgeous scenery along its path, and I agree.  The Million Dollar Highway begins by following the Uncompahgre River, which is bright red from the run-off from the spectacular Red Mountain. It crosses two mountain passes, Red Mountain Pass (11,008 ft.) and Molas Divide (10,910 ft) before ending in Durango.  It is best to drive this route in both directions since you will be surprised at how much scenery is missed in one direction alone.  Durango is quite a busy little town, and I arrived just days after a local Harley rally had left town which explained why I seemed to be passing so many Harley folks that day.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument.

After a good nights sleep in the Durango Best Western (one of two nights outside of Vegas that I didn't camp) I headed west towards Las Vegas.  There is a lot of potential side trips from Durango to Las Vegas, including Mesa Verde National Park, Canyon de Chelly National Park, and Zion National Park.  But on this trip I elected to visit the Four Corners National Park, Monument Valley, and the North Rim of The Grand Canyon.  Four Corners National Park is nothing but a very cheesy tourist trap.  It is merely a dirt and blacktop parking lot with a gate in front of it to collect entrance fees, several run down huts and trailers hawking tee shirts, and a plaque in the ground marking where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.  The only redeeming quality to the place is that in just a few minutes you can mark off four states on your USA map as "done." Monument Valley is a different story.  The wide endless desert plains are very colorful, with huge rock formations erupting from the valley floor around you.  Yes, there are numerous run down Navahoe Indian huts offering paraphernalia, but the grandeur of the valley obscures them. Leaving Monument Valley I stopped at a gas station and met Susan, a woman in her late twenties from Boston.  Sue was on the 84th day of her solo tour around the United States, riding a BMW with the world bungied onto it.  One could only laugh at the contrast between my Wing and Bunkhouse parked next to her BMW with bungied on bulges everywhere. But despite the different appearance of our rides there was no difference in our love of riding. As we sipped soft drinks and poured over maps in the late afternoon sun I had only two thoughts:  what a shame that we were heading in opposite directions; and how in the world could I swing 84 days off work next year!

Mexican Hat

 

Yes, they really did name a town after this rock.

View of Red Mountain

Monument Valley

On the way to the north rim of The Grand Canyon, route 89A crosses the Colorado River before traversing the Kaibob Plateau.  The Kaibob Plateau is a flat expanse of desert high plains with little more than sparse, low lying scrub brush on it.  Perched atop my Wing I could see for miles in either direction since I was the tallest thing around.  But rather than feeling large, I felt more like an insignificant speck on the desert floor.  At least that was what I was hoping the large, angry appearing thunderhead a few miles up the road saw me as.  The southwest is a land of contrast and that incudes the sky.  The entire sky was mostly sunny with a very thin veil of high altitude clouds, except for a single dark thunder cloud hovering just a few hundred feet above the desert floor.  Everywhere else was brightly lit except for a patch of desert below this lone cloud as it spit out rain and lightning onto the ground below.  I stopped to marvel at this phenomenon when I realized that the lightning was regularly striking about 100 yards to the left of the road.  There were no other roads around this cloud. I closely observed the mini-maelstrom to find that it was completely stationary, straddling my path menacingly. Have  you ever noticed how much a Goldwing's radio and c.b. antennae resemble a lightning rod?   The storm and I were at a stand-off, with time on the storms side.  After careful reflection, I decided to test fate by running through the storm after I had lowered the Wing's antennae by my side.  Accelerating to 70 miles per hour I bolted through the rain in less than two minutes, unscathed and with barely a drop on me .  I then quickly darted up a twisty canyon to the west ending 2000 feet above the plateau, now peering down on the storm I had just ridden beneath.  I had literally flown around the clouds on my GoldWing!

Continuing west  I approached the town of Jacob Lake, Arizona, slightly before dusk.  Since the campgrounds at Jacob Lake did not have any shower facilities, I was advised to head on down to the Grand Canyon National Park campgrounds which had showers.  What they forgot to tell me was that about 10 miles of the road had been completely excavated for reconstruction.  The rutted dirt road slowed me to about 10 mph and allowed the sun to set while I was still 30 miles from the park.  At a local gas station I learned that the campground at the park was full, and there was no way I was going back over the road construction in the dark.  Fortunately, just outside the national park open camping is allowed anywhere one quarter mile from a paved road.  I traveled a mile up a gravel road then made camp by pulling about 100 feet into the woods.  A full moon was already high in the sky as I bedded down.  A few hours later I heard something or someone rustling through my gear outside of the Bunkhouse.  I bolted upright to peer out the window only to have the Bunkhouse tip over on its side with me in it!.  I had forgotten to put the leveling jacks down! After righting the Bunkhouse I realized that the noises I had heard was just the ice settling in my cooler and I slept peacefully the rest of the night.

North Rim Lodge

Awakening at dawn, the full moon had been replaced by cloudy skies. I rode to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in time to get a window seat at the lodge, eating my breakfast while staring across the Grand Canyon. The landscape at the north rim is strikingly different from the south rim.  While the south rim is all flat desert and scrub brush,  the north rim is alpine-like forest.  The views of the Grand Canyon are better from the south rim, but the rest of the park is much prettier on the north side.  After breakfast the remainder of the morning was spent in intermittent drizzle as I rode along the rim of the Grand Canyon, constantly on the lookout for mule deer that were extremely active even in daylight. At one point I rounded a blind curve lined with near vertical rock walls on each side and a huge mule deer straddling the road.  I didn't think I could stop in time to avoid the deer, and he didn't think so either, so he sprang straight up from a standstill and cleared the 12 foot wall to my left, disappearing into the forest.  I had no idea that deer could launch themselves straight up like that, but  was very grateful for their athletic abilities considering the damage that otherwise would have resulted.  Before exiting the national park I was treated to one of the finest thunderstorms mother nature can offer, with wind driven raindrops the size of quarters.  I was completely undaunted by the storm until I remembered the 10 miles of dirt road I had to cross to get out.  To make matters worse, the construction crews picked that day to move their heaviest equipment down the muddy road.  It was a long  morning before I found myself on pavement again heading towards Las Vegas.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Friday night, 6 days after leaving Chicago.  The four nights and three days in Las Vegas are rather blurry, and judging from the amount of money missing from my wallet I prefer they remain that way. Leaving Las Vegas on Tuesday morning, I rode over Hoover Dam and stopped in Albuquerque for the night at a friends house.  I had used my bike phone to call them a few hours earlier, and when I arrived Dave and Mary  had a barbecued salmon steak dinner with beer, wine, and all the trimmings waiting for me.  I took this feast as a certain sign that the Good Lord had forgiven my transgressions in Las Vegas!  From Albuquerque I rode past Taos, New Mexico on my way to Colorado Springs.  At Colorado Springs I met with Bobb, a Wing rider from Owens Sound, Ontario.  Bobb and I had communicated via Internet before this trip, and the day before he had called me on my bike phone to set up the rendezvous.  While in camp I opened my cooler to display a 12-pack of beer and offered Bobb one, only to have him open the trunk of his Wing to display a bottle of  Southern Comfort which he offered me.  The next day we carefully navigated our bikes around the empties that littered our campsite and spent the next two days recuperating on the flat lands as we drove back to chicago.

Welcome to Tom’s Tank | Aquariums | Trap Shooting | Motorcycles

Part One